1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control device for controlling a printing apparatus that receives a print job and processes the print job, a print control method, and a computer-readable storage medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In traditional bookbinding, in a printing process, a printing apparatus prints contents contained in a print job in the sequence of composition of the contents and outputs components for use in a post-processing process or a binding process. In the post-processing process, post-processing apparatuses perform post-processing on the output components on a component basis. In the binding process, all the components are finally integrated by a binding apparatus. In such a case, typically, a process begins after the completion of its previous process.
For example, in bookbinding a print job that contains contents consisting of a cover, a main body, and a foldout in this order in composition, first, a printing apparatus prints all of these contents in the sequence of composition of the contents (in the order of the cover, the main body, and the foldout) in a printing process. After the completion of the printing process, a folding apparatus folds the foldout output in the printing process in a post-processing process. After the completion of the post-processing process, a binding apparatus binds all of the components (the cover, the main body, and folded foldout) in a binding process. Here, post-processing on a component basis (hereinafter referred to sometime as component basis post-processing) indicates post-processing performed on a part of components, unlike binding post-processing performed on all components. For example, in the above-described example case, folding performed on only the foldout is one example of the component basis post-processing, whereas binding performed on all of the components is not an example of the component basis post-processing.
However, with the above-described technique, the folding apparatus cannot fold a foldout unless printing of the foldout performed at the last is completed. Only after the completion of folding on the foldout, a binding process begins. When contents contained in a print job are printed in the sequence of composition of the contents, as in the above-described way, the time necessary to complete the entire bookbinding is long, and time efficiency is low. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 7-178975 and 9-156137 disclose a method enabling improvement of time efficiency in printing by execution of printing on a job basis or a page basis to perform parallel printing of a plurality of print jobs.
However, the techniques described in the above-mentioned patent documents enhance efficiency in printing on a plurality of jobs. Accordingly, a problem remains of the impossibility of reducing the time required for completing a task of a single print job in which components output on the basis of a plurality of contents contained in the print job are subjected to post-processing and are finally integrated.